Godzilla for Gay Rights?

We're Grey, We're Gay, Get Used to It?

We know this monster's gotten worked up over social causes before. Gojira (1954), Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964), Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, Godzilla 1985, and Godzilla vs. Destroyer all carried blatant no-nuke messages. Godzilla vs. Gigan and Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster made pollution look pretty dirty. Godzilla vs. Monster Zero and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) contained allegories of military and economic imperialism. And Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) even alluded to global warming in the story of Battra's retaliation against the civilization of the Cosmos. But what does Godzilla think about equal rights for gays?

Well, they haven't made Godzilla vs. William J. Bennet (1) just yet. But until that script gets sold (giant radioactive Bennet torching apartment buildings and smashing stores in the West Village, no doubt) we can still watch Godzilla vs. Megalon for that quick sexual freedom fix.

You doubt the word of Ming? You say I'm seeing things, hallucinating homoerotic subtexts, where all there is is nothing but BIG GUYS WEARING RUBBER? Well that's okay. But consider this:

The main human characters in Godzilla vs. Megalon are two adult men. They're living together, not in a tiny dorm room in downtown Tokyo, but in a big house in the suburbs, complete with driveway and car. Their relationship is unspecified.
There's a young boy who looks like he would be the son of one of the men, but he's actually a little brother. The men share responsibility for little brother's welfare - even taking him on what looks like a family excursion to a lake.
There's a tight shot in a darkened room of someone's bound ankles. The camera then pans up a pair of bare legs to reveal . . . Pretty Soldier Sailormoon? Chun Li from Street Fighter? Wonder Woman maybe? . . . Nope, it's not a woman at all, it's . . . the little brother! DOH!
That brings me to another thing. There are NO WOMEN anywhere in the movie (besides the Seatopian dancers). No mother for the kid, no (female) partner for either of the two men.
One of the two men teases the other about Jet Jaguar being "like a son" to him. Now, why would a guy want to build a flashy-looking, voice-controlled, man-sized robot in a super-hero outfit instead of having a biological son? And what kinda "macho man" resorts to *teasing* his good buddy? Curiouser and curiouser . . .
Speaking of Jet Jaguar, what accounts for the robot's mysterious tendency to abruptly develop a mind of its own and then GROW BIGGER?

Well, this movie was made in the 70's after all - during the so-called "sexual revolution" in the U.S. I dunno if social trends were similar in Japan at the time, but I do know that there are hippies galore, not to mention an outdoor fest straight out of Woodstock, in Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, a movie that was made just before Megalon. Also, I've read that before the Western missionaries started comin' out in droves, homosexuality and sexual freedom in general were more acceptable in Japan than they were afterwards. (2)

In no way am I trying to suggest that gay men all harbor a secret longing to become parents, get off on shiny metal suits, exclude women from their lives or ogle minors. (Well, not any more than all straight men do, anyway.) I just dig the image of Godzilla on a rampage through a city - revealing, by the dust he leaves in his wake, that the various kinds of walls and barriers that make up our civilization are nothing but lightweight, delicate toys and set-pieces.

If you must know, no I'm not gay, but I think the world might be a little more peaceful, less overcrowded and therefore less polluted if more people were. Or at least if more men learned to "Make Love Not War" - with whomever they prefer.

(1) I got nothing against Mr. Bennet's idea of writing a "book of virtues" for kids. I just wish his idea of "virtue" was more inclusive - Bennet argued against legalizing same-sex marriages when the issue came to a head last year.
(2) In Peter Hyam's book Empire and Sexuality, a kind of Eurocentric, Libertarian perspective on how Western imperialism impacted global sexual demographics and mores.

Feedback from a gay G fan! . . .